Namibia’s Chess Olympiad horror in Uzbekistan: Visas rejected, players stranded - The Indian Express

Two of Namibia’s players had their visas rejected upon arrival in Tashkent for the 2026 Chess Olympiad, putting their participation in the tournament in jeopardy. In a desperate bid, they had to register their women’s team coach Leonhard Mueller and national chess federation president Charles Eichab in the men’s team.

Namibia’s problems began when two players, Goodwill Khoa and Otto Nakapunda, were denied visas in Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent. Khoa was sent back to Istanbul, where he was stranded without his passport.

Indian Grandmaster Priyadharshan Kannappan, who is training the Namibian men’s team and serves as their coach and captain, provided a detailed account of what unfolded.

Priyadharshan, who had been working with the team virtually for the past few months, travelled to Samarkand via Tashkent from New Delhi on an Indian passport and had no trouble clearing immigration. After landing in Tashkent at 9 am on Tuesday, he reached Samarkand by 4 pm the same day.

By that time, the Namibian contingent, which included 10 players across men and women events, women’s team coach Mueller and head of delegation Eichab, had landed in Tashkent.

2 player visa got rejected of Namibia Open team in Tashkent arrival with no solid reason on visa on arrival. As the captain of the team this is frustrating as we have only 3 players now.@FIDE_chess

Help us out. #ChessOlympiad@ChessbaseIndia @chesscom

But unlike Priyadharshan, who had applied for an e-visa months in advance, the Namibian chess contingent had gone for visas on arrival at Islam Karimov Tashkent International Airport.

“All the players except two from the open team got their visas, and they didn’t give any proper reason for denying the other two. They just said their names were not on the list,” Priyadharshan told The Indian Express.

While the rest of the Namibian team was figuring out what to do, Priyadharshan was scrambling in Samarkand to get his team registered for the tournament.

“The pairings were scheduled to be published at around 10 pm Uzbek time, so we were racing against time. We were waiting from 5 pm, and around 7 pm I got an update that one of the players’ visas was likely to be rejected and the other was a 50-50 case. It was only at 8:50 pm that I got an update on WhatsApp that both applications were rejected, and we were left with only three players out of five,” he said.

“I kept messaging the chief arbiter and the TAP (Technical Advisory Panel) via email, WhatsApp, and so on.”

The players who got the visas had to catch a train at 9 pm, the last one leaving Tashkent for Samarkand, leaving Nakapunda and Khoa at the airport. The team reached Samarkand only at 5 am on Wednesday, with no contact from the two players stranded in the capital.

With no other options, Priyadharshan registered Mueller and Eichab in the men’s team. Mueller faced Romania’s Filip Magold in Namibia’s opening-round match.

Later, Priyadharshan was informed that Khoa had been sent back to Istanbul with his passport confiscated by Tashkent airport authorities. He was also fined 800 euros and had to rebook his flight only after paying 480 euros.

This comes a day after the Indian team had to wait for over six hours to get their hotel rooms in Samarkand.